New methods eyed for buying movies

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leave room to make money, according to cash-strapped entreprenuers. That's forcing many to bank for now on adult entertainment, while they wait for mainstream content producers to loosen up licenses.

Start-up ObjectCube developed Internet video-on-demand technology more than three years ago, and several film studios and distributors already sell and deliver movies through the company's software. None, however are mainstream.

Brave new box office

Companies are popping up with innovative methods of delivering movies to viewers. Here are a few.

Akimbo Systems
Customers can: Buy movie downloads for playback on TVs (via an Akimbo set-top box) or PCs.

EZTakes
Customers will be able to: Download movies to PCs and burn them to disc. (Service is currently available only as part of a test.)

ObjectCube
Customers can: Rent or buy movies for playback on TVs (via a set-top box), PCs or Xboxes. Movies can be downloaded, streamed or delivered via disc. For now, only "adult" films are available.

Peerflix
Customers can: Trade used DVDs via the Web.

"It is all adult," said CTO and founder Jay Janarthanan, who formerly worked at Sun Microsystems and Reuters.

With ObjectCube, film distributors can either sell entire movies or charge customers on a per-minute basis. Using a per-minute fee structure "works on adult because no one cares about the plot," he said.

The company never intended to target the adult market. Janarthanan founded the company in 2002 and conducted several painstaking meetings with the major studios.

"I gave up in frustration. They stall and stall and stall," he said.

After running through most of his savings in less than a year, Janarthanan found himself headed to Las Vegas to explore the adult technology conferences that take place around the same time as the Consumer Electronics Show. Adult entertainment companies latched onto the idea immediately.

While the system is popular with adult studios because it allows consumers to buy materials without leaving their homes, there are other, less obvious reasons for ObjectCube's success in this niche. Mainstream studios demand the lion's share of revenue garnered from their DVD sales. By contrast, adult studios only get about 10 percent of the revenues, leaving the rest (and fat profit margins) for film distributors and broadcasters.

Adult sites have been using the software for more than a year. Mainstream studios won't likely adopt this sort of technology for selling movies for three years, Janarthanan said.

Despite the obvious difficulties, Net video entrepreneurs are countering hard economic realities with creativity and optimism--and winning over some investors.

Although consumers already have a number of ways to get DVDs, Peerflix says its growth shows that the model can be improved. There are roughly 25,000 titles available on the network. Earlier this week, venture capital firm 3i and BV Capital announced they were investing in the company.

The network in some ways harks back to the economies of medieval Europe. Technically, consumers don't buy (or sell) used DVDs on the network. Instead, they create lists of movies they want, and movies they want to trade, and then exchange them for "peerbucks." The peerbucks can then be traded for other DVDs, according to Danielle Levy, a Peerflix representative.

DVDs on the network cost 1, 2 or 3 peerbucks, depending on consumer demand and available supply. Consumers can buy peerbucks from the company for $9 each, but most people prefer simply to trade in that old "Men in Black" DVD for a copy of something equivalently priced, such as "Men in Black II," she said.

Peerflicks makes its money by charging the person acquiring the movies 99 cents per transaction, she said. It's illegal to trade unauthorized pirate disks on this network.

Peerflicks was founded by Danny Robinson and Billy McNair in late 2004. The two were earlier behind Spinway, a free ISP service from the go-go dot-com days.

Peerflix is up and running, but EZTakes won't go commercial until the spring. Currently, two film distributors are conducting trials. Another is tinkering with the idea of using this technology as a way to disseminate the 250 movies and documentaries on the film festival circuit that rarely reach the public.

[DougDbug]

If you own it, you can re-sell it!

It is NOT "legally iffy" to sell a used DVD! If you own it, you can do what you want with it. You can sell it, give it away, loan it to your friends, toss it out with the trash, drill holes in it... It's YOUR property. (Of course, you can't make illegal copies, and you can't use it in a "public performance" without permission.)

People sell used books all the time. You can even sell an altered book. You can write in it, or white-out all the dirty words and re-sell it! (College students usually write in and "highlight" thier books before re-selling them.)

[Rusdude]

True, see Half/eBay/Amazon Marketplace

Ditto. I was very surprised when they wrote about selling of used DVDs being illegal (or quasi-illegal) in the opening paragraphs.

People have sold used DVDs for years through places like Half.com, eBay, or Amazon Marketplace. Not to mention that many music/DVD stores let you sell back used music CDs/DVDs.

[Manning27]

You Are Correct, Sir!

DVD video product that is distributed in the US is covered by First Sale Doctrine. First Sale states that after a legally distributed copy of a copyrighted and recorded film media is owned, the owner can subsequently distribute that original copy as they see fit, this can include resale, rental, given away etc. The DMCA relates more to the breaking of encryption to make illegal copies of the original, this is not in any way allowed for under law. Here is a more detailed explanation of the DMCA;

"The DMCA also makes it illegal for a person to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component or part thereof which is primarily designed or produced to circumvent a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner in a work protected by copyright, has only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than circumvention of such measures, or is marketed for use in circumventing such measures."

This has to do with illegal duplication of the original copyrighted work, not the distribution of that original.

[John Kuzak]

toss it out with the trash

http://www.analogstereo.com/daewoo_tacuma_owners_manual.htm

[deckreyes]

New used DVD trading site.

How about trying out a new dvd trading site with a different trading model?

Flickflop (www.flickflop.com) is the newest way to trade your used DVD movies. Users trade against FlickFlop's growing inventory of movies, simplifying the trade selection by offering the movies that they can trade for depending on their DVD, their movie genre preferences and trading history.

-You trade against flickflop's growing inventory of DVD movies.
-Trade immediately, no more waiting if a DVD is available from another member.
-No membership fees, no commitments